Assessing the regional disparities in geoengineering impacts

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Irvine, Peter J., Ridgwell, Andy, Lunt, Daniel J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2010
• Subjects: Meteorology and Climatology; Earth Sciences; Atmospheric Sciences; Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11796/; https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/11796/1/grl27347.pdf; http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1018/2010GL044447/2010GL044447.pdf

Solar Radiation Management (SRM) Geoengineering may ameliorate many consequences of global warming but also has the potential to drive regional climates outside the envelope of greenhouse-gas induced warming, creating 'novel' conditions, and could affect precipitation in some regions disproportionably. Here, using a fully coupled climate model we explore some new methodologies for assessing regional disparities in geoengineering impacts. Taking a 4 x CO2 climate and an idealized 'sunshade' SRM strategy, we consider different fractions of the maximum theoretical, 4 x CO2-cancelling global mean cooling. Whilst regional predictions in particularly relatively low resolution global climate models must be treated with caution, our simulations indicate that it might be possible to identify a level of SRM geoengineering capable of meeting multiple targets, such as maintaining a stable mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet and cooling global climate, but without reducing global precipitation below pre-industrial or exposing significant fractions of the Earth to 'novel' climate conditions. Citation: Irvine, P. J., A. Ridgwell, and D. J. Lunt (2010), Assessing the regional disparities in geoengineering impacts, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L18702, doi:10.1029/2010GL044447.